Posts Tagged ‘Quote of the day’

Yesterday was my Uncle Teddy’s birthday. And four years is a crazy long time, but not so long that I didn’t have myself a good cry last night.

So of course, the girls were in rare form.

Setting the scene: Gracie walks in on me texting my cousin, and crying.Gracie: Aw! What’s wrong??!Me: It’s Uncle Teddy’s birthday.Gracie: I know! I should not get in the shower [like I had been yelling at her to do], and make you cinnamon rolls and cheer you up instead!Me: Um…no.

Setting the scene, Part II: Bee walks in on me crying, after I’ve shuttled her sister into the other room.Bee: What’s wrong, Mum?Me: It’s Uncle Teddy’s birthday, and I’m texting Uncle Kene.Bee: You should tell him to go to Crazy Uncle Mike’s house and play with the cup holders that light up. Those are cool.

The setting: We’ve entered the land of the Gracie being able to wear some of my shoes and some of my smaller tshirts and cardigans – the kind of clothes you can “cheat” on a little. But mostly shoes. To the point that while the girl has her own everyday shoes, there’s no point in paying for a second set of dressy “church” shoes when I have an entire selection in my closet. And so…

Gracie: Mom, I need a pair of black flats for choir on Thursday night.Me: Okay, let’s go take a look at what I have.<We walk into my closet. Gracie starts looking at black shoes.>Gracie: Hey. Half of these are too big, and half of them are too small, and why do you have so many sizes, and WHAT IS GOING ON HERE?!Me: Welcome to the rest of your life.

It’s not often I get to capture these any more, and I thought we could use some levity this morning.

The setting: Bee and I were talking about food and our days, when all of a sudden her face lit up.

Bee: Oh! Mom! I had time to try something today at lunch and they were really good! The…I forget what they’re called. They’re pasta squares?Me, thinking of cookies squares: Pasta squares?! Like…lasagna?Bee: Nooo….Me: Thick like a cookie square, but made of pasta mashed together?Bee: No… You know, like the…Me: Oh! Ravioli!Bee: Yes! Those!

Saturday we were bumming around – Jeff had pulled his back for the second time in three weeks and I had a small kidney stone. So we were relaxing on the couch, fighting over the heating pad, and mostly watching movies. Gracie was hanging out with us, for the most part, while the two littles were in the front room playing.

I was amused that we had, by chance, finished The Martian, Matt Damon’s latest movie, and then immediately started Good Will Hunting, the movie that really put Damon on the map.

Oh – and it’s important to know that it tickles me all the way down to my toes that Gracie, with her brand new Radar for Boys, thinks Damon’s as hott as I do.

Me, marveling over the age difference of Matt Damons: Gracie, do you know who this is?<I point towards Matt Damon janitoring the halls of MIT>
Gracie: Uh…Me: You don’t know?Gracie, stalling: ….Um ….Oh! Is he that guy from that movie there, Titanic?Me: …No, Gracie, that is not Leonardo DiCaprio from Titanic.

The scene: Jeff, Bee and I were sitting at the kitchen table, talking about her day, and somehow everything kept coming back to math. (Perhaps having our family friend and all around favorite person as her math teacher has something to do with that, no?) Bee started talking about jobs and designing airplanes.

Jeff: Maybe you should become a design engineer, Bee.Bee: Yeah, I want to design airplanes and make them bigger and cooler. I have lots of ideas. Using my math.<Bee gets this wild, wonderful, evil look in her eye.>
Bee: But the boys won’t like it!Me: Do it anyway, baby girl!

I have more Princess Bride Legos, but bless it: I didn’t fall asleep until 3:30 a.m. last night and so I’m finding it hard to focus on saving and captioning them all. Instead, let’s pull out a beauty from this weekend. Otherwise I’ll forget all about it, and it’s cute enough to keep forever.

The scene: The Xman spent the first two hours of the day on Saturday in time-out because he was pitching a fit over getting his nails clipped. He had refused for his mom all week, and wasn’t allowed to watch TV or use the tablet or do anything until he chose to clip his nails. One bad choice led to another, and before you know it: time-out. So there the X-man stood, crying, carrying on, and calling everyone stupid in attempts to get a reaction out of the parents. Who (mostly) weren’t rewarding him with even a glance.

Much, much later in the day, the Xman and I were alone in the living room, conversing over Legos.

I feel like these are coming less frequently now that my girls have outgrown the outspoken toddler stage, but I got a fun one out of the Bee-girl last night.

The scene: I walked into the front room to tell Bee to pick up and go brush her teeth. I found her in the midst of two Barbies, and a whole lotta clothes. One Barbie, discarded at Bee’s feet, had on a long ball gown. The Barbie Bee was holding had on a one-piece yellow silk romper.

Me: Oh, that’s a nice outfit. Is that her pajamas?Bee: No. This Barbie [she picked up the one in the ball gown] is the Evil Fashion Lord and she kidnapped her [waves Yellow Romper Barbie] and put her in the dungeon!Me: …Um. Well. Okay, then. Can you pick up and go get ready for bed?

I keep telling you guys how obsessed with fashion Bee is, but maybe we watched a few too many America’s Top Model episodes at Grandma’s house last week.

The mosquitoes have already started eating me alive this year. Even after I put on the bug repellant, I still manage to find one or two. Which is what happened the other day at the park.

Me: Aw, man!X-man, all concerned: What happened, Miss Katie?Me: I have a bug bite. [Twist my calf around.] See?X-man: I have one, too!
X-man shows me a small scratch on his knee from when he fell in the mulch.Me: That’s not a bug bite, it’s a scratch.X-man, all defensive: It is, too! It’s a skin-bite!!Me: No, it’s not a bug bite. It’s not itchy! It’s a scrape.X-man: No!!! It’s a skin-bite, when the ground bit my skin where I falled and left a boo-boo!!!

Well, okay then. A skin-bite. I’m sure it did feel like the ground jumped up and bit him. …Even if it totally isn’t a bug bite. Hmfph.

Okay, I am sort of hijacking this story, but since the girls had barely tumbled into the house yesterday before they were telling me all about it, I feel like it kind of happened to us, too. I mean, the girls did tell me all about it…

The girls went to take pictures in the bluebonnets with their dad and stepmom, way out in the country. On the way there this (approximate) conversation happened:

Stepmom: We’re going to see some Belgian waffles!Bee: Woohoo!

Bee tells Gracie, and then promptly falls asleep. Because Bee and car rides of any length, always.

A little while later, it must have dawned on Gracie that this doesn’t quite make sense…

Gracie: Wait, is there a restaurant out there? Or something?Stepmom: Huh?Gracie: For the Belgian waffles?Stepmom: …horses. Belgian horses.

Only my children would mishear “waffles” for “horses.”

Also, now I would like some Belgian waffles with warm fruit topping please. Someone get on that.

I went back and forth over whether to post this quote. To say it was embarrassing is an understatement. And it’s about the trials and tribulations of dating, with children – something I always have a harder time opening up about – in a public forum, at least. And then I decided this is one of those things I will look back at and laugh over, and is a teeny tiny piece I will want to remember. If I’m writing to capture the story, I should leave out only those pieces that are truly, truly necessary. Right?

So this happened. We were sitting around the table on Sunday night, eating dinner – me, Jeff, the girls and X-man. And apparently, X-man needed something.

X-man: Hey, Jeff!Jeff: X-man, I’m “Daddy.”

X-man had been doing this all day Sunday. I get it. Not only is the “call your parents by their name” thing a popular phase for the four-years-old set, but he had also been listening to my girls call him Jeff all weekend. So I tried to explain. I think kids like having things explained to them – it beats having to do what your parents say just because they say so, right?

Me: He’s your daddy, X-man, just like I’m the girls’ mommy. The girls call me Mom, and you call me “Miss Katie”. Gracie and Bee call him “Jeff” because he’s not their daddy.Bee: Well, not yet.

And that is when I died.

There was that crushing, enormous roar of silence for a second and then everyone started laughing and I covered my eyes with my hand and felt myself blushing scarlet even as I was laughing. AS A COPING MECHANISM. I was laughing, but I wanted the floor to open up and swallow me whole! Doesn’t that girl understand my commitment issues? It took me weeks and a brown paper bag to breathe into just to use the word “girlfriend”!

Eventually, everyone calmed down, and I was still hiding, so Jeff asked – both with great kindness and empathy and with a goodish deal of teasing – whether I needed to go compose myself. So I crawled out from behind my hand, gave a big sigh, and pretended the entire thing hadn’t happened.

And even though I’m putting this down on paper (per se), I am still pretending it didn’t happen, so let us never speak of this again. Okay? Okay.